This year has been filled with many trials, but with huge blessings as well. We are so grateful for all of it, because not only have we learned from everything, but because we have grown stronger!
In January of this year, we began looking for a house to buy, which we did find and bought in February. We love our little place. It's just the right size for the three of us and it's a great investment for our future. We were nervous about the move because I couldn't lift a single box, but many of our friends and family came to help us with the move. Thank you for all those who helped us back during that stressful time!
Then on my due date, April 10th, we had our handsome baby boy! Despite contracting since 33 weeks of pregnancy, he showed up when we told him to. He is such a huge blessing in our lives. His presence has taught us how to be patient and selfless. Those were the greatest lessons we could've learned.
With the delivery, more trials came our way. We're not really sure how we got through those first three weeks postpartum, but we made it! My dad came all the way from Brazil and stayed with us for two of those three weeks, and we enjoyed his company quite a bit, even though it was full of daily visits back to the hospital, and me going through finals and dealing with high fevers from medical complications at the same time. It was a very challenging time for all of us. We had to humble ourselves enough to care a little less about our own well-being, and start focusing more on our newborn baby. We learned a lot from it!
Elijah then started school in the summer. He is going to Florida Tech for a Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice, which is a degree no schools in Utah offer. What a great experience this has been for him! It's so exciting to see him studying, and doing it because he wants to, not because he needs to keep his grades barely above the required to play soccer. He's doing so well, and is ahead on his timeline, which means he'll be done in about 2 1/2 years. Then he's hoping to work as a cop for a few years until he can start working for the FBI, or some other federal law enforcement agency.
I, on the other hand, went back to work full-time when Jacen was four weeks old, and decided to put school on hold until the Spring. It's been such a fun experience to stay with Jacen during the day while Elijah's at work. Doing nights has been great and works awesome with taking care of Jacen. I transferred from Intermountain Medical Center Maternity and Labor & Delivery to LDS Hospital W4 and Special Care Nursery in July. I love my work!
Jacen has grown from a 8lb 12oz baby to an astounding 23 lb baby! He loves food. He's never been picky about how it comes out, as long as there's food in there! He also loves to sit up and pull all his toys out of the toy box and chew on them for a couple minutes before reaching for the next one. He's a great bouncer and loves to bounce all the time. I think we got ourselves a Tigger! He's slept through the night since he was eight weeks old, and has been ever since. He's such a happy baby, we got spoiled!
Heavenly Father has blessed us so much this year. I'm also grateful for everything our friends and family have done for us. I don't think we could've made it this far if it wasn't for everyone's help and generosity. Thank you so much!
We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!
Love,
The Caswells
Every year for New Years we've been going up to a cabin just outside of Heber to hang out with some friends and family. But because I had to work on New Years night, we decided to throw our own little party (sorry we would've invited more people but our little place can only hold so many ehehe). So that's Elijah peeling the eggs for deviled eggs....
And those are our twin eggs.... I feel bad for the chicken who would've had a chance at having twin babies but we took them from her :(
And cute Jacen! Was handling everything so well!
That's him up way past bedtime. He had gone to bed but he woke up 2 hours later because he could hear us all outside his room and he refused to go to bed until 12:30... he so looks like he's exhausted! But he was having fun with the red cup!
In the picture: Jason and Lisa Haslam, Brian and Nikki Davis, and Elijah. Jeremy and Jennifer Harris were there at one point but they had to leave early to put cute little Devin to bed. 
